After the BJP won three of the six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra, NCP president Sharad Pawar stated on Saturday that he was not surprised by the results, adding that his party earned one additional vote from an independent member who was biased against his party, news agency PTI reported.
Union minister Piyush Goyal, former state minister Anil Bonde, and Dhananjay Mahadik won the hotly contested election held on Friday.
Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena, Praful Patel of the NCP, and Imran Pratapgarhi of the Congress also won. Sanjay Pawar, the Sena's second candidate, was defeated by Mahadik of the BJP.
"I am not shocked to see the results. If you see the votes polled by every candidate of (Maha Vikas Aghadi allies) NCP, Shiv Sena, and Congress, they received the votes as per the quota. Only Praful Patel (of NCP) received one extra vote and I know from where it came. That was not MVA's vote, it was from the opposite side," Pawar was quoted by PTI in its report.
He stated that there was a large gap for the sixth seat, which Shiv Sena was contesting, but MVA showed confidence and put in efforts.
"BJP had more Independent MLAs on their side, but for both, BJP and MVA, the number of voteswase not sufficient," he said.
Despite falling short of a few numbers, the MVA made a valiant attempt to gain the sixth seat, but one must recognize the miracle, in which BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis succeeded in weaning away independents and tiny parties that would have backed the MVA, Pawar noted.
"That is why this gap of votes was there," he said.
He stated that the first-preference vote quotas for Patel (NCP), Pratapgarhi (Congress), and Raut (Shiv Sena) were unchanged.
(With Inputs From PTI)